After nine months on the Australian market, Honda Australia has unplugged its Accord Hybrid from local sales.

Local hybrid passenger cars account for only 1.0 percent of the new car market and, if you take out the Toyota Camry Hybrid – popular with fleets and taxi buyers – that figure is significantly lower.

“Our core business is petrol engines and in the NSX (supercar) we will have a flagship hybrid model, but the volume hybrid market in Australia is not growing and won’t without Government incentives,” Honda Australia Director Stephen Collins said.

This contrasts with the situation in Japan where generous Government subsidies see 65 percent of Honda Accord sales going to the hybrid model.

“On the Accord Hybrid, we set our sales volume target very low and we achieved our target,” Mr Collins explained to TMR (with some irony).